The trip, which marks the first papal visit to Iraq, will also include meetings with the country’s top political and religious officials.
“For some time I wanted to meet those people who have suffered so much, Francis said on Wednesday.” The people of Iraq are waiting for us. They were waiting for St. John Paul II, who was not allowed to go, “he added, referring to a planned trip in 2000, which was canceled after a collapse in negotiations between the Vatican and then President Saddam Hussein.
“The people cannot be disappointed a second time. Let us pray that this trip is well done.”
The Iraqi authorities hailed the visit as an important moment for the country, although they admit in particular that the timing of the trip was a challenge for the authorities.
Iraq imposed a full curfew throughout the four-day papal visit in an attempt to minimize health and safety risks.
One of the main parts of the pope’s itinerary is a visit on Saturday to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a widely revered Shiite cleric. Sistani will receive the pontiff at his residence in the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.
The papal meeting with 90-year-old Sistani – which is rarely seen in public – can be seen as one of the most significant summits between a pope and an important Shiite Muslim figure.
Francis met with the great Sunni cleric Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb on several occasions, co-signing a 2019 document that promised “human brotherhood” among world religions.
The meeting with Sistani is expected by some to serve as the Shiite Muslim component of the pontiff’s efforts to strengthen interfaith relations.
‘I hope the Pope will stay a month’
The Pope is also scheduled to visit several Iraqi areas and cities linked to the Bible, such as the plain of Ur, considered Abraham’s birthplace.
It is believed that he had long wanted to go to Iraq, which figures strongly in the Bible, and whose waning Christian minority has suffered greatly from the country’s long cycles of violence.
Considered one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, before the invasion of the United States in 2003, there were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. About 80% of them have fled since then, according to the main Christian clergy there.
Members of the Christian minority, which has been the target of repeated attacks by extremists, say they hope the papal visit will highlight the neglect they feel they have suffered from Iraqi officials.
Many in the country’s Muslim majority, who loudly complain about government corruption and mismanagement, also have their hopes confiscated.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis staged months-long street demonstrations, some of which were violently suppressed, in the months before the coronavirus pandemic began to spread here.
“The country needs services, security and peace,” said Mohammed Jassem, 50. “[The Pope] he cannot give us these things, but we ask him to call on the leadership and the parties for these things. ”
“We call on him to unify his ethnicity … the country requires unity and we hope that he can bring this to us,” he added.
Iraqi officials are busy preparing for the papal visit, clearing streets and paving others where the Vatican delegation is to go. New streetlights illuminate the roads, and many previously broken traffic lights have returned to work.
The irony did not go unnoticed by Iraqis. “The streets of Baghdad have gotten a lot better in a week,” said 41-year-old merchant Ahmad al-Assadi. “I would like him to stay for a month and travel all over Iraq … maybe then they can fix the entire country.”